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One more time: instances, applications, and implications of the replay

ONE MORE TIME:
INSTANCES, APPLICATIONS,
AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE REPLAY
by
Christopher C.P. Hanson
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2010
Copyright 2010 Christopher C.P. Hanson

First used to describe a rematch of a tied sporting event, the term "replay" was extended in the early twentieth century to express the playback of a recording. Since this usage, the significance of the term and concept of replay has expanded considerably into a range of cultural, social, political, industrial, technological, and experiential practices. As such, replay resists simple classification and definition, and this dissertation unpacks the various meanings and implications of its instances and applications across several media forms. In particular, I interrogate the replay’s usage and significance in the United States through avant-garde filmmaking practices, television broadcasting, and the structures and play mechanics of video games.; I begin with a consideration of avant-garde film practitioners who have engaged with replay through multiple registers. Reliant on the unique relationship between cinema and reality, filmmakers use film’s capacity to record and replay for a range of investigations, including psychosexual examination and recontexualization of extant film. Throughout its industrial history, replay and repetition have played central roles in the production, distribution, exhibition, and experience of television. Emerging from the practices of radio broadcasting and reception, television’s structure has long emphasized regularized and predictable content structured into organized programming schedules. Additionally, specific modes of televisual broadcasting have been shaped by methods of textual replay, which alters events during their broadcast. The capacity for replay has increasingly passed into the viewer’s control, with the arrival of television technologies which provide users a degree of control over the stream of programming entering their home. A consideration of the bipartite nature of the ludic and the digital in the ontology of video games initiates my discussion of the replay in interactive media. After establishing this framework, I examine the multiple implementations and implications of the replay through several critical lenses. This exploration includes the consideration of the replay’s function as an industrial strategy, its ideological significance, and its evolving relationship with play itself. Ultimately, I contend that the replay at once contains and extends time and space, transforming the lived experience—and its register in memory and media—into a palimpsest.

ONE MORE TIME:
INSTANCES, APPLICATIONS,
AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE REPLAY
by
Christopher C.P. Hanson
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2010
Copyright 2010 Christopher C.P. Hanson